Lost drone

fivepak · Mar 13, 2018

Just a quick update: The other day a friend on Facebook messaged me a picture of me taken with my lost drone. Apparently on a Facebook group he frequents, a home inspector found my drone on a roof and took the pictures off the memory card. He posted the picture to the group to see if anyone recognised me. Luckily someone did and today I met the home inspector to retrieve my lost drone. It sat on the roof for nearly 3 months in snow and rain. It may not work, but the battery should be fine and I now have propeller guards for the replacement Mavic Pro.

BIGLUG24 · Mar 13, 2018

Great story congratulations Drone people are great people

laurens23 · Mar 13, 2018

fivepak said:
Just a quick update: The other day a friend on Facebook messaged me a picture of me taken with my lost drone. Apparently on a Facebook group he frequents, a home inspector found my drone on a roof and took the pictures off the memory card. He posted the picture to the group to see if anyone recognised me. Luckily someone did and today I met the home inspector to retrieve my lost drone. It sat on the roof for nearly 3 months in snow and rain. It may not work, but the battery should be fine and I now have propeller guards for the replacement Mavic Pro.

Do you know where exactly it was found? would be nice to see how accurate the prediction were.

Also, I would not trust that battery after being outside and empty for that long.

The drone however might surprise you. the electronics can survive a lot. How much physical damage is there? If it still turns on (after making sure it is dry) it might be well worth it to repair it.

fivepak · Mar 13, 2018

laurens23 said:
Do you know where exactly it was found? would be nice to see how accurate the prediction were.

Also, I would not trust that battery after being outside and empty for that long.

The drone however might surprise you. the electronics can survive a lot. How much physical damage is there? If it still turns on (after making sure it is dry) it might be well worth it to repair it.

It looks like no physical damage at all. The guy that found it did say it was upside down on a roof near the FAA facility in Nashua NH. No other description than that.

lilroc17 · Mar 13, 2018

Let us know if it still works.

787steve · Mar 13, 2018

Congrats on the recovery. Good to know there are good guys out there. Glad it didn't land ON the FAA facility. It might have been awkward to knock on their door to ask if you could go on their roof to recover your lost drone.

I hope you have no more excitement like this in the future.

fivepak · Mar 13, 2018

I charged the battery today and then place it back in the drone. The drone powered up fine. I'm going to assume it works. I already synced the remote to the new replacement drone and don't want to switch back to the old drone unless I have to.

HiKen51 · Mar 14, 2018

fivepak said:
I charged the battery today and then place it back in the drone. The drone powered up fine. I'm going to assume it works. I already synced the remote to the new replacement drone and don't want to switch back to the old drone unless I have to.

Great! They're sturdy little birds. You've probably seen the video by the guy who got his out of a river after 3 days and it still worked.

Sailorsteve · Mar 14, 2018

daisy-girl said:
Totally agree with the above method for "Failsafe RTH."

Kieran, re "Set RTH height at maximum legal height [120m]": If the trees surrounding the open flying area are, say, 50 meters high, would it be a, possibly fatal, error to set the RTH Height to 120m, which would mean the battery would need to traverse an additional 140m (70 above 50 then another 70 back down to 50)?

Not to mention the increased possibility of additional wind effects.

Sailorsteve · Mar 14, 2018

An amazing story. I can imagine your relief and joy when DJI offered a replacement to you.
And then to have your original found and returned to you! Absolutely Terrific!!

sar104 · Mar 15, 2018

fivepak said:
It looks like no physical damage at all. The guy that found it did say it was upside down on a roof near the FAA facility in Nashua NH. No other description than that.

If it was near the FAA facility then it did not follow the predicted path:

Strange - I wonder how it ended up heading north with the wind out of the west.

fivepak · Mar 20, 2018

sar104 said:
If it was near the FAA facility then it did not follow the predicted path:

Strange - I wonder how it ended up heading north with the wind out of the west.

I also thought it would have gone further. I figured it had ten more minutes of flight time left at the last known point.

FrankIII · Mar 20, 2018

fivepak said:
After answering all of DJI's questions and sending videos and flight records, now I wait.[/Q

I would hope all pilots have their name and phone number on their AC just in case its found.

Mossiback · Mar 20, 2018

This was a great read. It was good to hear that DJI replaced at 100% and you got the lost Mavic back.

fivepak said:
...we have confirmed it as a warranty case according to our analysis...

I would save the original for parts only. Since DJI admitted it was defective there is no reason not to assume that it would once again fly away, risking damage or injury in the process.